


On the Pink Sands of Barbuda

by startraveller776



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Drama, F/M, Friendship, Healing, Infidelity, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startraveller776/pseuds/startraveller776
Summary: Erika “Rik” Hadley is on her second honeymoon—alone. She is resigned to spending the next several weeks in solitude, marinating in a quagmire of regrets and heartache, when she meets her enigmatic neighbor—another loner in this idyllic setting. As an unlikely friendship blossoms between them, Rik finds herself falling for this handsome stranger who seems to be everything her husband isn’t.(PERPETUALLY INCOMPLETE)
Relationships: Tom Hiddleston/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. Prologue: the beginning of the end

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** This a repost of an old fic. It was written around 2013-ish and based on what was known about Tom's life then. (Thanks to nubriema, I have all my Hiddleston RPF back!!) Special thanks also to Next To Something for beta services!
> 
>  **BEFORE YOU READ:** There will be no further updates to this story. Read at your own peril.

**PROLOGUE**   
_the beginning of the end_

_Buzz._

_Buzz._

_Buzz._

_Buzz._

_Buzz._

“Hello?”

“Sorry to ring you at three in the morning, but we need to talk.”

Pause. “Hang on.” Soft click of a door closing. “What is it?”

“You’ve made the scandal sheets.”

“What? How?”

“Your little day trip to Antigua.”

“Shit!” Further muttered curses. “Did they get a clear shot?”

“Of you, yes. Fortunately not of her.”

“Thank God for that.”

“What do I need to know about her?”

Long silence. “Nothing. It’s just… It’s just a holiday fling.”

“Tom—”

“It’s nothing, Luke. Leave her out of it.”

Sigh. “Tom, I need to get ahead of this before it turns into a real shit storm, and I can’t do that without all of the information.”

Groan. “ _Dammit_.” Deep breath. “Her name is Rik—Erika Hadley. She’s American and she’s…married.”

Uncomfortable pause. “She’s _married?_ This is the biggest cock up you’ve ever gotten yourself into. How the hell did it happen? Fulfilling a fan’s wish for a slap and tickle with the big celebrity?”

“Of course not, you arsehole! You know I wouldn’t do anything that monumentally stupid!”

“How is having a fling with a married woman _not_ monumentally stupid?”

“She doesn’t know who I am.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Deadly.”

“This just keeps getting better. Not only have you potentially destroyed her marriage, but she has no idea of the hell she’s gotten herself into by being involved with you.”

“I know.” Muffled voice. “She’s going to hate me.”

Sigh. “I’ll do what I can to keep her privacy intact, but you have got to stay away from her for the rest of your holiday.”

Silence.

“Tom? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah. I heard you.”

“But you’re not going to stay away from her.”

Silence.

“You know if this gets out, you can kiss your perfect gentleman image goodbye. ‘The gallant Tom Hiddleston caught in a torrid affair.’ Oh, they’ll eat it up, all right.”

“I really don’t care what they say about me. Just keep her out of the papers.”

“Don’t tell me you seriously fancy her.”

Silence.

“ _Shit_. For once, I would love it if you wouldn’t make my job so bloody hard. Fine. If you’re determined to have your ‘holiday fling,’ at least keep away from public places where you might be photographed. One good shot of her, and it’s over.”

Quiet. “It’ll be over soon enough anyway.”

Click.


	2. Chapter One: friendly overtures

**CHAPTER ONE**  
_friendly overtures_

_Three weeks earlier…_

She shouldn’t have come here alone.

Rik stared out of the bungalow window at a cerulean sea crashing against salmon-colored sand. She should be happy, at peace. That’s what the brochure had promised. Enjoy the crystalline ocean without the crowds in picturesque Barbuda. Leave your cares behind. Unfortunately, her cares seemed to have smuggled themselves into her luggage and were now frolicking gaily along the empty beach. Left behind, instead, was her husband.

She sighed, turning off her tablet. In the four days she’d been here, Jon had yet to contact her other than a perfunctory reply to her “I made it safely” message. She hadn’t truly expected anything more than that. But she had hoped. She always hoped.

She surveyed the empty room. The driftwood-framed bed was half-unmade and her suitcases sat open on the floor, clothes laid out across the chestnut-colored suede couch. Jon would have hated the mess. He would have insisted that they unpack immediately upon arrival “like civilized people.” And then there would have been one activity after another crammed into their schedule because lazing on the shore for days on end would be an unforgivable waste of time. It wouldn’t have been the kind of vacation she wanted.

But they would have been together.

Refusing to allow her thoughts to travel down that particular rabbit hole again, she tossed the tablet on the bed. Her eyes fell to the worn leather satchel near the door. She hadn’t touched it since she checked in; she wasn’t entirely sure why she had brought it in the first place. Maybe because it was the only thing she owned that didn’t have Jon’s fingerprints all over it.

She had come across the long forgotten bag a month ago while she was reorganizing the closet. Memories cascaded over her then when she undid the buckle with a quaking hand and pulled out artifacts from another life. A pad of Canson paper, pencils, charcoal, a white Conté crayon, a sharpener, three different types of erasers, a half-full sketchbook.

She was taken back to sitting in Washington Square Park, doing quick studies of passing students and tourists with deft fingers perpetually stained by graphite and charcoal. There hadn’t been an item of clothing in her wardrobe that escaped the splatter of paint or the reek of turpentine.

The satchel was all she had left of that naïve girl, and at times, it was a millstone sinking her into the depths of her regrets. How many times had she decided to throw it away? To slip back into ignorance, to keep pretending that she hadn’t sold her dreams by piecemeal in favor of the woman she had become? And yet, here it was. Leaning against the wall like an accusation.

Like a beacon.

She slipped on her shoes and crossed the room, hesitating only a breath before picking the bag up. The hide was both familiar and foreign beneath her fingertips as she walked outside into the balmy island morning. A burst of sea air ruffled through her hair as she made her way to the pair of lounge chairs nearby. The sun was still low enough to cast the area in long shadows, and she had a little time before she would need her daily routine of bathing herself in sunscreen. Back home, it was easier to forget how fair she was—even in the opaque humidity of the South—but in Barbuda, she was reminded of it hourly. Jon had laughed when she told him the destination of their second honeymoon.

He looked over her pale skin with a canted brow. “I guess you don’t plan on us leaving the hotel room, then,” he said with _that_ tone. The one that was a mixture of exasperation and “there goes my wife with her silly little ideas again.”

She’d spent nearly every waking moment on the beach—even though her passive aggressive mutiny had no audience.

She curled up in the chair, ignoring the satchel she’d dropped in the pink sand, and let the thunder of the endless tide chase away all thought. Of Jon. Of her life in Atlanta full of charity balls and Junior League meetings and dinners with her husband—only when he had clients to impress. Of the back-biting from her so-called friends. Of pretending she didn’t hear her in-laws still call her Jon’s Yankee girl—as if she were some rebellious phase he had yet to grow out of.

Of smiling until her cheeks hurt when all she wanted to do was scream.

Not that anyone would hear her if she did.

She picked up the satchel, undid the clasp, and pulled out the sketchbook she hadn’t the courage to peruse when she found the bag. The spine crackled from years of disuse as she opened it. She ran her fingers over the blocky lettering scrawled on the inside cover: “Property of Rik Carter. If found, keep it for a few years and then sell it for a fortune on eBay because someday I’m gonna rival Norman Rockwell, yo!” She laughed, tears she didn’t want to shed stinging her eyes.

She studied each sketch, vividly recalling what had inspired her to put pencil or charcoal to page each time. There was the disheveled humanities professor who looked perpetually lost. The boy who sat cross-legged in the grass, strumming his guitar, a cigarette he never smoked tucked behind his ear. A couple she had sketched mid-fight, eternally frozen in her book with pointing fingers and mouths twisted with anger. A young father cooing at a tiny bundle in his arms as he stood in line at Starbucks. There were a dozen more memories like these. No matter the styles and mediums she experimented with, she had always found herself drawn to capturing people. Not in portraits, but the unseen moments where they revealed who they really were—their hopes, their disappointments. Joys and sorrows.

The final image in her book was of Jon. His lips were peeled back in carefree laughter as he draped an arm around one of his college buddies. Youth was written in the roundness of his cheeks, the softness of his jaw. She had trouble remembering him like this—as the good-looking frat boy who had drawn her in with his charming southern drawl. Then again, she wasn’t the sassy little redhead she once was, either.

That was the way of things, wasn’t it? People evolved, even if they didn’t believe they would. Even if they didn’t want to.

Her gaze moved to the unblemished page next to Jon’s sketch, and she felt the familiar tentative tug from the long repressed urge to create. The tide crashed and receded for several cycles before she decided to give in to that old compulsion she’d been evading over the years. She sharpened one of the pencils and, hand hovering over the sketchbook, waited for inspiration to strike. She thought of Tilly, the woman who ran the small shop at the main resort with her unwavering cheerfulness. She thought of the geriatric sisters at check-in who seemed almost too frail to travel, but had refused to let the bellhop help with their luggage. She thought of the trio of boys weaving through the crowds in the marketplace the other day, kicking an old soccer ball between them.

And then, of course, there was her neighbor.

She had never spoken to the lanky man with short, sun-kissed curls, but the few times they crossed paths—either on the beach when he was out for a run or up at one of the resort restaurants—he would give her a friendly wave with a broad grin. She returned the gesture each time in what was becoming a strange little ritual between them.

Yesterday, she watched him from her bungalow as he sat in the sand, long arms wrapped around his knees as he stared blankly at the ocean. He had stayed like that for more than an hour, still as a statue except for his loose white shirt billowing in the wind.

That inexplicably poignant scene was what she wanted to immortalize.

Her first lines were awkward, tentative marks. But soon, long dormant muscle memory took over, and her pencil strokes grew bolder, more self-assured. She no longer heard the crash of the tide; the world instead narrowed to the straight slope of his cleft nose, the geometry of his cheekbones in the waning evening light. And his eyes. Wide and pale, full of something indefinable that resonated with her. Not grief or pain. More like he was…adrift.

Was that how she saw herself?

As she crosshatched the shadow at the hollow of his neck and in the folds of his shirt, she wondered what had brought him to this remote locale unaccompanied. Was it some event, some tragedy that he was running from, or had he just needed space to breathe? Or was she merely laying the measured suffocation of her own life at the feet of his silent unrest? There had always been a thread of her delicately woven into each piece—no matter the subject. This sketch was no exception.

“You’re an artist.”

Startled by the unexpected voice, she nearly marred the page with an errant slash. She glanced up at the source of the intrusion and found her neighbor standing over her, fresh from his morning run and his mouth stretched in a friendly smile. Unconsciously, she drew the sketchbook to her chest, embarrassed that she’d been caught stealing that private moment from him.

“Sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said in a deep British timbre. “It’s just that we’ve been waving at each other for days now, and I thought it was time for a proper introduction. I’m Tom.” He held out a hand expectantly.

Taking it, she replied, “Rik.” A flurry of skittish butterflies came alive in her chest as he wrapped his long fingers around hers and searched her face. Looking for something. After atense heartbeat, his smile grew wider and he released her hand. Apparently, he had found it.

Goosebumps fanned out over her skin.

“Pleasure, Rik. May I?” He gestured toward the other lounge chair. She nodded and he took a seat, brushing his hands across his thighs. “Will you let me see it? You were drawing me, weren’t you?”

Heat ignited in her cheeks at his bald question. “It was either you or the ocean,” she deflected.

He let out a breathy, clipped laugh. “I’m flattered that I was more sketch-worthy than the ocean.” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to guess North America. Canada or the States. As soon as you say the word ‘sorry,’ I’ll know for certain which.”

“I’m French. Why do you think I have zis outrageous accent?” The words left Rik’s mouth without thought, surprising her as much as it did him, and she wanted to crawl underneath the chair. She always said the most ridiculous things when she was flustered. And Jon always gave her a long-suffering sigh when she did. Because people of their caliber did not spout off every silly thought that flitted across their minds.

Tom didn’t roll his eyes, though, or give her a patronizing false smile like so many of her ‘friends’ did. Instead, he threw back his head and guffawed, his tongue pressing up against his bottom teeth. His unbridled laughter was infectious, and she found herself joining him.

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” he said. “Clever. I like you already, Rik.”

“It was kind of an obsession in high school,” she admitted, put at ease by his seemingly laid-back manner. “I can still quote the entire movie verbatim.”

“Really?” He narrowed his eyes impishly. “I may have to test you sometime. What’s your favorite bit?”

“There isn’t a part of the movie I don’t love,” she answered, “but if I had to choose, I would say the Cave of Caer Bannog.”

He stroked a finger across his lip with a sedate nod, as though she had answered some deep philosophical question. “What? Behind the rabbit?”

She hadn’t expected him to quote the film, and it took her a beat to remember the next line. “It is the rabbit!”

“Why, that’s no ordinary rabbit!” he continued in a perfect imitation of Tim the Enchanter’s gravelly brogue. “That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on. Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide! It’s a killer!”

Rik nearly doubled over in laughter, and Tom flashed her a broad grin. She liked him too, she realized.

“Are you ever going to let me have a look?” he asked, pointing to the sketchbook in her arms. “Or have I not earned the right yet?”

She winced. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.” She glanced down at the book and entertained the fleeting thought of denying his request. Would he be offended that she had witnessed his somber meditation? Would he see the ghosts of her own troubles in the way she shaped his eyes and in the contours she drew in his brow?

Her hand shook only a little as she passed the book over. “Be kind. I’m rusty.” She kept her tone light despite the thick stir of anxiety in her middle.

“I’m always kind.” He gave her a wink before turning his attention to the page. His expression sobered as he looked over the sketch, and she made a surreptitious study of him while he was distracted.

Individually, there was nothing particularly remarkable about his features. His lips were thin when the current infatuation was with a more generous mouth. His eyebrows were a tad unruly, and his long face almost bordered on gaunt with those hollowed cheeks. And yet, when viewed as a whole, he was handsome—breathtakingly so under the right light and at the right angles. The conclusion came as no surprise to Rik; she had learned years ago that physical attractiveness had more to do with symmetry and proportions than any single characteristic.

Her gaze dipped to take in the rest of him. He was slender, but not skinny, in his tank top and jogging shorts. There was a hint of muscle definition in his arms as he held the book which bespoke a well-maintained fitness regime, something more than daily sprints on the beach. And he was tall, taller than Jon.

“Is that how I looked? Like I was pondering the meaning of life?”

Abashed heat flooded across her skin as she brought her gaze back to Tom’s face, but it appeared that he hadn’t noticed her thorough scrutiny of him. “Were you?” she asked.

He glanced up. “Pondering the meaning of life?” A little crease pulled his brows together as he seemed to consider his answer. “After a manner, I suppose.”

He inhaled deeply and smiled—as if attempting to shake his thoughts from whatever gloomy place they had gone. “This is really fantastic.” He thumbed through the other pages. “All of it. You’ve got a gift. Do you paint as well?”

She hugged her knees to her chest as wispy memories rose like specters from her past. She remembered the press of wood between her fingers as she danced the brush across the canvas. What had once been as necessary as the air she breathed was no longer even a hobby.

“I used to.”

“Used to?” Tom asked, eyes widened with incredulity. “I don’t like the sound of that. Talent like yours should be shared with the world.”

She shrugged, though his admiration of her work awakened that part of her which had once reveled in enthusiastic feedback. “Maybe I’ll get back to it someday.”

“You had better.” He pointed to the inside cover of the sketchbook. “Even your past self would agree that it’s a travesty against humanity to withhold your gift. Miss Carter, is it?”

She gave him a wan smile, uneasy with the blunt reminder of how far off course her life had gone. “It’s Mrs. Hadley now,” she said, holding up her left hand.

“Ah.” He gave the ring on her finger a cursory glance before returning the book to her. “And has Mr. Hadley been hiding out in the beach house since you’ve arrived, or is he joining you later? Or is it a Mrs. Hadley? I don’t want to be presumptuous.”

Her answering laugh was just on this side of forced. The questions pricked at the tender disappointment festering dangerously close to her heart. “It’s Mr. Hadley, and he’s been detained by work. He won’t be joining me later.” She left unsaid that Jon hadn’t bothered to hide his relief when a new project interfered with their travel plans.

“I am truly sorry to hear that.” Tom’s sincere empathy made her uncomfortable, and she suddenly needed the conversation to steer away from this subject.

“And you? Where is Mrs...?” She let the question hang, giving him space to fill in the blank.

He opened his mouth and then closed it as if he were uncertain whether or not to give her his last name. Again he gave her a searching gaze that sent a tremor skittering through her chest. “William,” he finally said.

His reticence seemed odd, but she brushed it off as a desire for privacy. “Where is your Mrs. William then? Or Mr. William?”

“Sadly, there is no Mrs. or Mr. William.” He heaved a dramatic sigh, splaying his fingers against his chest as though pained. “I have yet to convince a woman to marry me, and no man has yet convinced me to marry him.”

“Wow,” Rik said with a chuckle. “That was a very eloquent way of saying that you’re single and straight.”

He shrugged. “I try.” He glanced away, running a hand through his hair before turning back to her. “I’m wondering if you would care to join me for brunch.”

She frowned, surprised by the unexpected invitation. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who preyed on unhappily married women. Even so, years of high society grooming made her hesitate. Echoes of her mother-in-law’s warnings rebounded in her mind—of avoiding the very appearance of having an inappropriate closeness with another man lest the vultures circle with their venomous speculations.

“I promise my intentions are entirely noble,” Tom said, mistaking her silence as a distrust in him. “I am the consummate English gentleman. It’s just that I’m more than a little bored, and it might be pleasant to have a friend whilst here.”

A friend. She could use a friend. One who seemed genuinely interested in knowing her rather than the social status she held because of her last name. And there was no one here to spin sharing an innocent meal with a member of the opposite sex into salacious gossip.

“I can’t turn down an English gentleman, can I?” she said with a grin inspired more by the sudden revelation of her freedom than eagerness to spend more time with him.

He nodded gravely. “It would be a terribly rude thing to do.”

“Then, in the interest of not being rude—” she slipped into her best imitation of his accent, “—I accept your most gracious invitation, Sir William.”

He laughed, long and loudly. “That, my dear, was appalling. We’ll have to work on your British.” Pressing the palms of his hands to his knees, he unfolded himself from the lounge chair. “I’ll just get cleaned up and I’ll pop over to yours to collect in you in thirty. Will that be all right?”

She rose with him, feeling diminutive compared to his towering height. “I’ll be there.”

“Fantastic.” He took her hand in both of his for another shake. “I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship, Rik Hadley. See you shortly.”

With a flutter of anticipation, she watched Tom jog across the beach toward his place and found herself glad that she’d decided to come to Barbuda anyway—without Jon.

The thought felt precariously disloyal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** I've added a summary of how the story would have gone had I completed it in the next chapter.


	3. Summary of the Rest of the Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **First, a quick note:** With the exception of the prologue, the entire story is told from Rik's point of view. Also, this is merely a detailed summary, and while there are many parts which are pretty fleshed out, it still does not reflect how the prose would have been written in the polished final draft.

Tom and Rik have that brunch together in the next chapter. The conversation between them goes as well as their first meeting did. Tom isn’t forthcoming about his career—though, I hadn’t settled yet on specifics, whether they just don’t talk about it at all or he lies about it. (I’m thinking more of a misdirect rather than an outright lie.) I also hadn’t decided whether anyone else in the resort recognizes him. (I was leaning toward no one recognizing him, at least, not at this time.) Rik is roughly Tom’s age—or the age he was when I wrote the story (around 32)—or maybe a year or two younger.

Rik doesn’t really go into details about why her husband, Jon, didn’t come on vacation with her, and Tom doesn’t ask. Instead, they bond over things they have in common, most of which are from Rik’s life before marriage. She feels a little more like herself with Tom than she has in a long time, and while she’s glad for this budding friendship, a part of her knows that she should tread carefully—especially when he proposes an idea. There aren’t a lot of activities at the resort for people who are single (like him) or here alone (like her). All the cool amenities are for couples or families. Maybe they should join forces, he says, so they can take advantage of all the resort has to offer—platonically, of course.

Rik hesitates to agree to it. Her earlier reservations about the importance of appearances are swimming in her mind, but then she doesn’t remember the last time she’s laughed so much, the last time a conversation with someone wasn’t infused with worry about the fodder she’d inadvertently provide the vicious gossip-mongers in her high society life. Besides, as charismatic and handsome as Tom is, as much as she likes him, she’s not feeling anything but friendship for him. It’s not like she’s going to jump into some torrid affair with the guy. She’s never been that kind of person. And his invitation seems perfectly on the up-and-up. So she says yes.

The next couple of chapters cover some of the activities they do together. (I hadn’t planned all of those yet.) They go snorkeling. Join the dinner group that introduces them to different local cuisine. They go on hikes. They go on a shopping tour. All the while, their friendship grows. Everything with Tom is easy, and the more time Rik spends with him, the more she becomes the spunky, witty, vivacious person she used to be. Within a few days, they’re spending pretty much every waking moment together. Eating all of their meals together at the resort restaurants. Hanging out on the beach, etc. Tom tells her funny stories about growing up in England, shares his passion for Shakespeare; she shares about her childhood with a single mother. When he asks what her favorite movies are, she admits that she hasn’t seen pretty much any new film since college; her life has been busy with all the things expected of her husband’s family. (Jon comes from old money in the South.) While Tom and Rik’s conversations turn deeper, they never really touch on what brought each of them to Barbuda alone.

Rik hasn’t known how starved she’s been for a true friendship until now, and she wakes up each morning excited for a new day. It’s such a wonderful, _liberating_ feeling. She tries not to think about how brief this is going to be, that she’s going to have to return to the confines of her life in Atlanta. She just wants to live in this moment of freedom. She’s drawing a lot, at Tom’s encouragement, and it’s like she’s gotten a small piece of herself back. But that’s bittersweet for her. It’s something else that she can’t really have—not in her _real_ life.

A reminder of the dangerous waters she’s treading comes when they go horseback riding in the sea. Rik has never ridden a horse. She’d gone from growing up in Eugene, one of the big cities in Oregon, to school in NYC, to the major metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. After the orientation, when faced with the horse that she should be riding, anxiety takes over. The thing is _huge_. Tom tries to mollify her concerns, but she can’t bring herself to get on the beast. Tom tells her to wait, and he goes to talk with the guy leading the tour. When he comes back, he asks if she’d be willing to give riding with him a try.

“They really are gentle creatures when properly trained,” he says. “I promise you’ll be safe with me.”

Rik relents. He helps her into the saddle first, then encourages her to scoot forward. He comes up behind her, takes the reins, and she tries not to lean into him. Because here’s the thing: this is horseback riding in the sea, and the participants are encouraged to wear something that can get wet—namely, swimsuits. Tom’s in a pair of trunks, and while his bare chest isn’t a new sight for her (she’s already noted the chiseled lines of his lean, well-defined physique, and captured it in her sketchbook), this is the first time she’s brought out her bikini—the new one she bought for this trip. (Another notion that Jon had found ridiculous, considering her fair complexion.) She wears a gauzy sarong around her waist, and she’d felt perfectly comfortable—until Tom climbed on the horse behind her. They’ve never been this physically close before, barring the brief hugs they sometimes share in the evenings before going to their separate bungalows. And he smells like sunscreen and soap and something she can’t name, but combined it’s appealing.

Rik jumps a little when the horse lurches, and Tom grabs her waist, his long fingers gently but firmly steadying her against the bare skin of her middle, and her stomach flutters with a hint of physical attraction. Tom, fortunately, seems totally unaffected as he lets her go as soon as he’s sure she’s settled, chuckling softly at her endearing anxiety. She pushes away this first blush of something more than friendship she’s feeling, blaming it on the combination of the strain in her relationship with Jon—the sporadic intimacy between them has felt more like an obligation, a need to scratch an itch, than true emotional connection for years—and how free she feels when she’s with Tom. And really, he’s handsome but not at all full of himself. He can be silly or very deep. She’d dare any woman not to feel _some_ kind of attraction to him. It’s only a problem if she makes more out of this harmless crush than it really is.

And so she ignores the prickles that dance across her skin when he has her take the reins with his hands over hers, teaching her how to guide the horse. The rest of the ride is wonderful and fun. They decide they’ll do it again before she leaves (his holiday is a week longer than hers), and she promises that she’ll muster up the courage to ride on her own.

They continue to spend all hours of the day together, and she’s aware that her crush is taking root, though she tries to ignore it. It’s crazy how quickly they’ve bonded. She feels like she’s known him for ages. She remembers the old Anne of Green Gables films she and her mom watched together when she was growing up. She thinks of how Anne called her dearest friends “bosom companions” and “kindred spirits.” Is this what she has with Tom?

Late one night, she gets a call on the phone in her bungalow. At first she’s anxious, worried that something has happened back home—that her mother is in trouble or something’s happened to Jon—but it turns out to be Tom.

“Oh, good,” he says without preamble. “You’re still up. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is on the telly. Wanna come over and watch with me?”

“Tom,” she says with a good-natured groan, “it’s kinda late.”

“What? And you’ve got an early morning meeting tomorrow?” he asks sardonically. “I have popcorn.”

She laughs at that, and really, what’s the harm in going over to watch a wonderfully horrible favorite? “Fine. But I’m wearing my pajamas.”

“I would expect no less, darling,” he agrees. “Now, hurry. It’s already started.”

She goes to his place, forcefully ignoring the butterflies in her stomach. He greets her with a happy grin that splits his face in two—maybe happier than he ought to be that she’s agreed to watch a cult classic with him—before he gives her a quick, tight hug. Maybe he’s having an off night like she has occasionally. That moment in the quiet hours when the rhythm of the ocean erases other distractions and unwelcome truths have a way of drifting to the surface, refusing to be brushed aside. He offers her a bowl of popcorn and the moment passes.

They really get into the movie. Dancing across the small living area of his seaside cottage to “The Time Warp” and belting the song at the top of their lungs. There’s laughter and popcorn fights and it’s perfect and wonderful. As they sit on the couch later, her snuggled up in one of his blankets, almost but not quite leaning into one another as they quietly watch “An American in Paris” in sleepy silence, she can easily forget her other life. She’s happy, truly _happy_ for the first time in years.

Reality comes crashing back to her the next morning when she wakes up next to Tom. They’d both fallen asleep during the movie, and during the night, she’d end up curled up against his side. His arm had made its way around her waist, fingers knotted in the hem of her tank top as though even in slumber he’s determined to keep her next to him. The thought sends a thrill through her middle, followed by a churning of guilt. Because this is perilously close to a line that shouldn’t be crossed between friends—between a married woman and a man who isn’t her husband. Especially because she likes that, when he stirs awake, he gives her a beatific, sleepy smile as if he’s glad she stayed over. They can’t do this again. She needs to dial things back to a safer distance between them. She really should cut ties altogether before her heart starts getting confused.

But she can’t bring herself to walk away from the first true friend she’s had in a decade. And so she resolves to think of him as a brother.

Back at her bungalow, after she showers and gets ready for breakfast with Tom at the main resort, she checks the calendar of the day’s available activities out of habit. And suddenly she has the answer to her problem. There’s a singles mixer that evening—drinks and dancing at the resort’s night club. She’ll drag him to that, act as his wingman and maybe he’ll meet someone else, someone who is available. And she can disentangle herself from the conflicting thoughts she’s having about him. When she presents the idea to Tom at breakfast—minus the mention of the blurry lines between them—he’s not as keen on the idea. He didn’t come to Barbuda to find romance, he says. She pushes the idea, though, telling him that he doesn’t have to find his lady love, just have a little fun. She needs him to give this a try; she needs clearer boundaries between them. Fortunately, he relents.

Initially, there’s more drinking than dancing at the mixer, though Rik is careful not to imbibe too much. She’s so petite and has such low tolerance that she’d be drunk before she finished a Long Island Iced Tea. Tom drags his feet when she points out possible women for him to talk to. When she asks what his type is so she can do a better job as a wingman, he shrugs and tells her that he doesn’t really have one—that it’s not a particular feature he prefers but the whole package. She smacks his arm and tells him he’s no help at all, pushing aside how his eyes seemed to bore into her when he said the words. Words weighted with more meaning than they ought to have.

Finally a woman is courageous enough to approach Tom, and Rik shoves him off the stool to go dance. She watches him, both relieved and a little sad to see him finally smile and then laugh at something his companion says. It’s for the best, she tells herself.

Before the song is over, a man asks her to dance. She tries to explain that she’s married, that she only came to support her friend. The guy says he understands and he’ll be a perfect gentleman. But wouldn’t she like to have some fun too? She laughs. She likes his vibe, that he seems honest, so she follows him to the dance floor. He keeps his word and is a gentleman, and she lets the music wash over her. She’s not sure how many songs she’s danced to, and she gets a little worried when she can’t see Tom anymore. But then there he is. At the bar again—alone—taking a sip of something (scotch? bourbon?) as he stares at her. He sets his drink down and rises from the stool, his eyes pinned on hers as he makes his way through the crowd toward her. Her heart pounds in her chest.

“Mind if I cut in?” he says to her companion with a congenial smile. “We came together.”

Her dance partner graciously bows out, and Tom takes her into his arms as the next song begins. Her breath catches in her throat as he starts to lead her in a salsa. (The song is “Vivir Lo Nuestro” by Marc Anthony and La India.) Rik fumbles through the steps at first, and they both laugh, breaking the tension between them. She can tell that he’s a little drunk; she’s a bit on the loose side too. The dance is fun, even though her heart stutters just a smidgen when he brings her in close to him. He finishes with a dramatic dip, bent over her, handsome face hovering near hers. And they smile at each other, panting.

But then his gaze drops to her lips. For a tremulous heartbeat, a new possibility blooms between them—a hint of elation that he feels it too, this magnetic force between them. Fortunately reality surfaces in Rik’s fuzzy thoughts, just as Tom draws a hairsbreadth closer. She pushes back from him with a forced laugh, making an off-hand remark about the late hour. He nods and offers to escort her back to her bungalow. She jokes that it’s not that far and she’s not drunk.

“Maybe I am a little,” he says with a smile. “Maybe this is my cowardly way of admitting that I need an escort.”

“Fine.” Rik laughs again and shoves him playfully toward the exit. “Let’s get you safely home, you mad giant.” She’s not sure why he finds that nickname inordinately funny

There’s a weird dynamic between them; they still have their easy-going friendship, but there’s a current of something else now, something that Rik hopes if she ignores will go away—for both of them.

He still escorts her to her bungalow, saying that it’s what a proper English gentleman would do. Though as they stand in her stoop, he leans a little too close, pale eyes again going to her mouth as if it’s become the flame to his moth. Her stomach twists itself in a bilious knot as she says goodnight and slips inside. She sags against the door, chest aching. Because she knows this has gone too far. And yet… And yet she doesn’t want to give him up.

But she has to.

She spends the night in a fitful sleep. In the morning, the situation doesn’t look any better. The only answer is to walk away from him, friendship and all. But she doesn’t have the courage to face him and give him this sad news. Not yet. So she calls his cottage, tells him that she has to beg off from breakfast, from the rest of their plans for today because she isn’t feeling well.

“Oh no, darling,” he says with genuine concern. “What can I do to help?”

“I’ll be okay,” she lies. “I just need to rest.”

After the call, she curls up in bed, turns on the television and flips through the channels. She feels so incredibly isolated. She doesn’t have anyone to talk to about these tangled emotions she’s dealing with. She hasn’t heard from Jon aside from perfunctory replies to her occasional emails asking how work is going, if her sunflowers are thriving. She ends every message with “Wish you were here.” He says work is just fine, tells her not to worry about her flowers (“That’s what we pay the gardener for, for heaven’s sake”), but he never reciprocates the “I miss you.” It bothers her more that she doesn’t really miss him either. That these last couple of weeks without him, without the great, impassable divide between them, have been a _relief_.

Her morose thoughts are interrupted by a knock, followed by the door unlocking, and she sits up, calls out that there’s someone in here, thinking it’s housekeeping. She forgot to put up the “Do Not Disturb.”

“It’s only me,” a familiar voice calls back. “Sorry, I thought you would be asleep. I was only dropping a few things off. I used the extra key card you gave me for emergencies. This seemed like it qualified.”

She wraps a blanket around her and ventures out into the small living area. Tom is in the kitchenette, setting bags on the counter.

He glances over his shoulder at her with a smile. “I’ve brought some things to help mitigate whatever you’ve got—at least, I hope so.” He starts unpacking the sacks. “Stomach aids, painkillers, cold and flu medicine. And…” He holds up a box of Midol.

She raises a brow.

He shrugs. “Two sisters, remember?”

Also in his get-well kit: chocolate, soup, and novels. A bodice-ripping romance, a mystery, a thriller, something that looks vaguely sci-fi from the cover, and a novel that’s probably making the book club circuit back in the States.

“I didn’t know what kind of reading you like to do,” he explains, “so I picked up a few options.”

Tears sting in her eyes. This is all too much, and he must notice the strain in her face because his brows draw together with worry.

“What am I doing interrupting your rest like this?” he says, crossing the room to her. “We need to get you to bed.” He ushers her back to the room, doesn’t leave without testing her temperature with the back of his hand gently pressed against her forehead. He tucks her in, murmurs about checking on her in the morning with the caveat that if she needs anything, she’ll call him. She nods mutely, willing him to leave before she falls apart.

When he’s finished stowing the things he’s brought, when she hears the door latch closed with a barely audible click, she finally breathes out the pain that has a strangle-hold on her throat. She cries quietly at first, but it soons turns into racking sobs that steal the air from her lungs.

Because she can’t remember the last time her husband showed as much care for her as Tom has done. Because she doesn’t know how her life has gotten so far off-track. No, that’s wrong. She _does_ know. She knows each step that led her to coming to the Caribbean alone in stark detail, and that knowledge is a serrated truth that lances through her. Eventually, she runs out of tears, and a numbness washes over her before she drifts off to sleep.

When she wakes with eyes puffy and gritty, the sun is low on the horizon, casting breathtaking swaths of oranges and purples through the window in contrast to the dark hollow in her chest. She climbs out of bed, and after a quick shower, she wanders aimlessly from her room. She frowns when she finds another present that Tom’s left leaning against the coffee table. He must have come again while she was sleeping; she’s sure this wasn’t here before.

She picks up the note written in his loopy script. “I stumbled across a little supply shop on my explorations,” it says, “and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to become a benefactor to the arts. Well, to one artist anyway. They told me these were all the essentials you would need to get started (again). Get well soon, darling. I missed you today. Yours, Tom.”

She drops the letter to the floor and kneels before the table, sorting through what he bought her with shaking hands. There are canvases of different sizes, an easel, a palette, an assortment of oil paints, and brushes—and turpentine with a couple of rags, among a few other things. She understands that he meant well, that he couldn’t know how deeply this innocent “gift” would cut her—right to the core. She knows she shouldn’t feel angry at his presumption, but she is. And she doesn’t try to quell it. Because it’s less painful. Because how dare he? How dare he resurrect ghosts from her past better left buried? How dare he make her remember a time when she was carefree, happy, full of a bright future? It’s all a _fantasy_.

The anger propels her across the sandy walkway between their bungalows. She pounds on his door, fist rapping against the wood until he answers.

His eyes grow wide with worry when he looks down at her. “What is it? What’s happened?” he asks anxiously. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” she says, pushing past him into the room. “You can’t do these things, Tom.” She spins to face him, and he’s still standing at the door, hand on the handle, confusion plain in his features.

“You can’t just buy me art supplies and expect me to create masterpieces,” she says.

He flinches as if she’s slapped him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“And you can’t show up with…with soup and chocolate and—” she gestures wildly, “—books just because I told you I wasn’t feeling well!” A part of her knows she’s being irrational, but everything else inside is begging for her to make this—whatever this thing is with Tom— _stop_. She’s slowly bleeding out after being forced to admit how twisted and fractured everything has become between her and Jon, how fractured _she’s_ become, and she would give anything in this moment to go back to ignorance.

“I was only being a good friend,” Tom counters with a shake of his head. There’s a hint of frustration in his tone, and _good_. She wants him to fight with her. She needs him to. She needs him to pull back the veneer of magnanimous gentleman and show her his flaws.

“We’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks!” she shoots back. “You can’t just act like… Like…”

“Like what?” he asks tersely, expression flat as he waits for her to answer.

“Like it’s your job to take care of me!” She shakes her head, eyes stinging from anger, from heartache. “You’re not my husband.”

He frowns in confusion. “Of course not. I’ve never implied—”

“You’re not my husband!” The words echo in the small bungalow followed by a silence so oppressive and profound that she finds herself struggling to take a breath. “And when you show up with soup when I’m sick…” she continues in a quiet, trembling murmur. “When you believe in me after I stopped believing in myself…” Her gaze, blurring with a fresh wave of tears, drops to the floor. “You make me wish you were my husband,” she whispers.

Tom doesn’t reply, and it’s a beat before she has the strength to look up at him. He stares at her as if her confession was the last thing he expected to hear. She wishes she could unsay the words as a dozen emotions flicker across his features, the muscles in his jaw working. He breaks eye contact, glaces away for a protracted moment before his gaze returns to hers, resolute as if he’s made a decision, though she can’t begin to guess what it might be. He pushes the door closed, and her pulse becomes erratic.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

He holds her gaze as he draws closer to her—close enough that she has to crane her neck to keep her eyes on his. He searches her face and then says in a low voice, “I wish I were your husband too.”

It’s the only warning she has before he slides his fingers into her hair and covers her mouth with his in a blistering kiss. And it’s burning her to ash and bringing her back to life. It’s feral need, desperate want, and yet somehow it feels more like home than anything ever has. Like they _belong_.

He grasps the back of her thighs, lifts her up, and presses her against the nearest wall so he has a better angle to deepen the kiss. Everything disappears as her only focus is on the wordless sonnets he’s writing with his lips and tongue down her neck and across her collarbone, and oh, she’s just realized that she _loves_ him. The emotion is new, standing on shaking legs like a newborn foal, but it’s _real_. He pulls her away from the wall and stumbles to the bedroom with her legs hooked around his hips. What happens after he lays her on his bed is frenetic, rushed, as if the world might end and this is the only way to meet the demise of everything.

Afterward, he hovers over her, brow slick with sweat, looking down at her with so much awe and adoration that it takes her breath away.

She waits until he falls asleep before she slips out of his bed, dressing in the dark. Guilt has finally roused itself, climbing her throat with the bile from her stomach, strangling her. She wants to run from it, but she can’t run far enough. Tom thinks he knows her, but he doesn’t. Not everything. Not the one thing that matters most.

Back inside her cottage, she slides down the wall just inside the door, wrapping her arms around her knees as she waits for the next tide of briny regrets. But it doesn’t come. Instead her eyes fall to the blank canvases propped against the side of the couch. An image unfurls in her mind, super-imposes itself over the rectangle of white, and though her chest grows tight, she doesn’t deny the compulsion to get it outside of her and onto the canvas.

The artificial lighting, too dim and tinged with orange, isn’t right, and in her rush to set what’s inside her free, she won’t be able to do a proper underpainting, but it doesn’t matter. This isn't a piece for a gallery. This is a release of years of emotions, of disappointment, heartache, sorrow, grief. She uses a stick of charcoal from her old satchel to sketch a light design on the canvas.

She loses track of time as she mixes colors, as she draws the brush across the treated fabric again and again. Each stroke is a memory, a confession, a tear that her eyes are too dry to weep. She’s vaguely aware of someone knocking on her door, of her name being called on the other side with worry, with desperation. He can’t get in—she’s locked the door—but she’s grateful when he doesn’t try. She needs to talk to him, tell him what she should have before, but not yet. Not until she finishes laying the honesty she’s denied herself for a decade at the altar of the canvas in front of her.

She’s done. She lets the brush fall into the glass she used for the turpentine. She’ll have to reimburse the hotel for that. It hurts her to look at what she’s created, but at the same time, she’s lighter—like she’s set aside a crushing burden she’s carried so long that she’s forgotten how to live without it.

After cleaning up, she glances out the window, surprised to find that it’s late afternoon. The ocean rises and falls in a rhythmic tide, and the motion is soothing. Down the beach, she recognizes a tall, lanky form sitting on the pink sands—much the same as the first time she sketched him. She exhales a sigh that seems to come from deep in her bones. It’s time.

He rises as soon as she draws near, and oh, how she regrets the anguish written in his handsome face.

“Rik,” he says. “I…”

“I know,” she says, trying to convey everything in those two words. She takes a steadying breath. “I want to show you something.”

He nods, and she leads him back to her place in silence. Inside, she watches him carefully as his gaze falls to the painting on the easel he bought for her. The corners of his mouth turn up in a ghost of a smile as if he’s pleased but isn’t certain he’s allowed to be.

“It’s incredible,” he says, stepping toward it to get a better look.

“It’s my son,” she whispers.

On the canvas is a boy, two years old, youthful face split with joy as he reaches for a butterfly. She captured it from memory, from the time she’d taken him to the Butterfly Experience at the Dunwoody Nature Center. She remembers the wonder in his eyes, his peals of laughter each time one of the elegant insects would flutter near him.

Tom glances at her. “Son?”

She nods. “Jonathan Franklin Hadley III,” she says. “We called him ‘Trip.’”

Tom’s brows draw together. “Called? As in…” He leaves the rest unsaid.

“He died,” Rik confirms. “And it was my fault.”

She then spins a tale of an art major who met a Southern boy at a frat party during spring term of their senior year. The two dated and while they didn’t have a lot in common—she was a free spirit, planning to make a name for herself in the art community in NYC; he came from a long established family and had every expectation to carry on its legacy—but they had fun. There’s no doubt that they would have gone their separate ways at graduation, Rik explains, if she hadn’t gotten pregnant.

Marriage was the only answer as far as Jon was concerned. His family would be scandalized if he abandoned his responsibilities. Rik didn’t want a husband who was with her because of obligation, but she’d also grown up with a single mom and knew the hardships. In truth, she was terrified of trying to raise a child on her own, especially when she could barely support herself. (Not keeping the baby wasn’t an option in her mind.) And so she agreed to a wedding.

(She has a fleeting memory of her mother offering to help her out, telling her that marrying this boy wasn’t her only option.)

Jon’s family took care of everything. It was a big production. Nothing like the kind of wedding that Rik had ever visualized for herself. But she didn’t fight it, and she ignored the whispers of how she’d supposedly trapped Jon. (Apparently he was prime real estate and there were a lot of young women who had hoped to wear the title of Mrs. Jonathan Franklin Hadley Jr.) None of that mattered. Only the child growing inside of her. She could get through everything else for the baby’s sake.

Being thrust into high society life made Rik feel like Eliza Doolittle at the horse races. She never quite fit in. She said the wrong things, laughed at the wrong times. Jon was more understanding then. He even set up a spare room in their penthouse apartment as a studio for her. Marriage was an adjustment for them. They cared for each other, they were good friends, but they weren’t in love. She hoped that would come over time as she’d heard it did for others who had chosen marriages of convenience like theirs.

The baby came, and her hope was one step closer to reality. Because they both were absolutely enamored with that little boy. She saw Jon with new eyes as she watched him dote on his son, as he willingly changed diapers and was the first out of bed when Trip woke up in the middle of the night. She was sure he saw her with new eyes, too, whenever they shared a look over the top of Trip’s head during those blissful two years. Jon seemed more interested in her artwork, more encouraging (though he still thought of it as a hobby—albeit a fantastic one—rather than a real career option) and even was excited for her when the Junior League auctioned one of her paintings at their annual charity gala. When she showed up with Trip to surprise Jon with lunch at the offices of his family’s company, he lit up—not just for his “little man” but for her too.

But then she ran out of cadmium yellow one afternoon. Trip was at the little plastic easel she’d set up for him in her studio, brows drawn adorably together as he dragged his fingers across the butcher paper clipped there. He then licked the edible paint off his palm. She laughed and asked him if he wanted to go to the store with her.

“Go bye-bye!” he shouted excitedly.

She cleaned him up and got him buckled in the car, and he babbled happily as they headed across the city. There was an art store closer to their apartment, but they didn’t carry the brand of paint she preferred. She was singing nursery songs with Trip when an addict leading the cops on a high speed chase ran a red light, t-boning her BMW hatchback.

She woke in the hospital to discover that she was no longer a mother and never would be one again thanks to an emergency surgery to save her from internal injuries. It was a miracle she had survived, the doctors said. It’s never felt like a miracle to her. There have been so many times over the years that she wished she had died with Trip.

(Tears well in Tom’s eyes at this broken confession, but he doesn’t say a word as she continues her story.)

She closed the door to her studio and never opened it again. Eventually she had their housekeeper clear everything out and toss it. It was a few years before she and Jon agreed to clear out Trip’s room too.

Whatever had been budding between her and Jon withered after Trip’s death. He paid for her mother to come out and stay with Rik while she rehabilitated from the accident. The physical and emotional pain became too much to bear sometimes, but her mother got her through, refusing to let Rik give up on herself. Jon paid for talk therapy too, but it only did so much. Because Rik refused to believe that her son’s death was anything but her fault. Jon never said it outright, but he agreed with that sentiment. A fact that was made clear when, two years after the accident, it had become obvious that they would never again be real partners.

Rik broached the idea of a trial separation. There was nothing tying them together anymore outside of a piece of legal paper. She thought he’d be glad to be rid of her, to no longer have to look at the face of the woman who had taken the most precious thing in the world from him. He wasn’t, though. He was angry.

“Are you out of your mind? Do you know what kind of scandal that would create?” He shook his head. “Haven’t you caused me enough pain, Erika?” He left the apartment without a backward glance.

His words stung, stole the air from her lungs. She decided then and there that her only hope for redemption was to become the model Hadley wife. And so like a wind-up automaton, she did everything asked of her, swallowing down how lonely she was, how suffocating her life became. As far as she was concerned, it was what she deserved. Things did get a little better over time with Jon. They were no longer in the quagmire of misery. She thought that maybe this trip might salvage what little remained between them. But he didn’t come.

“And then I met you,” she says to Tom. “For the first time in almost a decade, I was laughing again. But now that’s…” She trails off and ventures a glance at him, gives him a wane smile. “You don’t want any part of this. I’m a mess.”

Tom shakes his head, reaches out to take her hand. “Nothing you’ve said changes how I feel about you.” He pulls her to him, holds her close for as long as it takes for her to grieve everything she’s lost.

She can’t find the words to tell him how grateful she is that he doesn’t give her staid platitudes, doesn’t try to assuage her guilt over Trip’s death or tell her that her son would have wanted her to be happy. While logically she knows the latter is true, she’s not ready to accept that. Not yet. She hasn’t suffered enough yet.

Tom stays the night, lies next to her with an arm wrapped around her middle. As she drifts off to sleep, she hears him murmur a poem—or is it a sonnet?

_Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d  
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;   
My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,   
And perspective it is the painter’s art.   
For through the painter must you see his skill,   
To find where your true image pictured lies;   
Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,   
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.   
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:   
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me   
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun  
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;   
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;   
They draw but what they see, know not the heart._

(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 24)

When she wakes the next morning, he’s lying facing her, affection in his pale eyes as he looks at her.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, brushing a lock of errant hair from her eyes. “Feeling any better?”

She mulls the question over. “Better” isn’t the right word. Lighter, maybe. She feels like the vise which has been crushing her for years has eased. It’s not as hard to breathe. But she doesn’t quite know how to put this into words, so she simply says, “A little.”

He gives her a small smile. “I’m glad.” And then he leans forward, tilts his head, but pauses as if giving her space to back away. She stays in place, and he gives her a kiss. It’s a lingering caress, unlike the manic desperation they shared the other night. This is something sweeter. A whisper of intention that runs deeper than physical desire.

He pulls back, props his head on his hand as he hooks his other arm around her waist. He breathes a heavy sigh. “You aren’t the only one who came here to escape demons.”

She thinks of that look on his face weeks ago as he stared at the ocean for what seemed hours. She doesn’t prod him when he doesn’t immediately expound further. She understands how the words can get tangled in your throat.

“I’d lost myself,” he says, “and until recently, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find my way back.”

He talks about how his career has slowly consumed more and more of him. She still doesn’t know what he does for a living. She can’t begin to guess what it might be since he seems to be something of a renaissance man, clearly educated and well-studied when he waxes philosophical on any given subject, but also creative (he plays guitar but isn’t a musician) and adventurous and fun-loving and perhaps a little bit geeky—he sometimes makes an off-hand reference to a comic book character she’s not familiar with, but then catches himself with a sheepish smile and changes the subject.

The pressures, the demands from his job, they encroached on his life, changed him. He made choices he’s not proud of, including getting involved with an equally ambitious woman who turned out to be quite toxic. He used to love what he does, but in the last few years it became less about the work and more about getting ahead at ever greater costs.

“It’s a game,” he explains, “of back door deals and knowing the right people, and I had to sell myself by piecemeal to get where I wanted to be.”

He’d become increasingly estranged from his formerly close-knit family. He paid lip service to them, promised to be at family functions, but then he’d let work steal him away. He only learned about (some kind of health scare; I hadn’t decided yet) his niece went through after the fact, and when he demanded to know why his sister hadn’t bothered to tell him when it happened, she’d merely said that they haven’t been able to count on in the last year or two, so what was the point? Her words gutted him.

“I looked in the mirror and realized that I didn’t like what was in the reflection,” he admits. “So I left it all behind, ran away to where it couldn’t touch me.” He looks down at her, brows furrowing, teeth grazing across his bottom lip as if pained. “There’s more.”

Rik places a hand on his cheek and gives him a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay. It’s enough.” She doesn’t want him to feel like he has to drag out every skeleton in his closet just to make her feel better about hers. “I think the gist is that we’re both pretty screwed up.”

His mouth twitches in a brief frown as though he might argue, as though he might make a full confession anyway—and she’s not sure she wants him to; she’s not sure that she’s ready for the intensity of their unusual magnetic connection to become stronger—but then he breathes a soft laugh. “Yes,” he agrees. “But I’ll admit that I don’t feel quite so rudderless when I’m with you.”

He gives her another soft, unhurried kiss, and it’s bittersweet. Because the timing of this is all wrong. But she doesn’t stop him when his lips on hers go from tender to something decidedly more ravenous. She lets his long, slender fingers slip beneath the hem of her tank top. This time it’s a languorous exploration as if together they are drawing a meandering roadmap to heaven.

The next few days are like the first week of their budding friendship, full of laughter, of bonding, but with an added unfettered intimacy that keeps them closer to their bungalows than before (his, in particular). There are moments when he stares at her silently, lips parted as if there are words knotted at the tip of his tongue that he’s unable to speak. Sometimes she thinks he might want to give voice to what lies unspoken between them, but then there’s a vulnerability in his eyes each time that reads more like something bigger than fearing that she won’t reciprocate his attachment. So, she kisses him to keep up their game of pretending that this vacation will somehow end in a happily-ever-after.

The resort offers a day trip to Antigua for shopping and entertainment, and they go. They hold hands as they walk through the street markets, chatting, talking, kissing. She wears a big floppy hat to keep the sun off, and he wears a baseball cap and sunglasses. It’s fun. It’s _easy_. Everything with him is easy. She forgets Atlanta, forgets Jon—as he has seemed to have forgotten her. She lives only in these moments with Tom. This is what “as long as you both shall live” is supposed to feel like—effortless contentment blended with consuming passion.

That night, while he traces a lazy design on her bare shoulder, he asks her if she would consider extending her holiday—perhaps indefinitely. “You could become a bohemian artist and sell paintings at the market to stuffy tourists,” he says. “I could hire on at the resort.”

She laughs at the picture he’s made with his suggestion, though a part of her aches for it. “Oh? And do you have a lot of experience in hotel concierging, Mr. William?”

He gives her a half-smile that seems more introspective than amused. “You might be surprised at what I know about hospitality management.”

She rolls her eyes playfully. “Please,” she says. “Every day with you is a surprise. Which makes it weirdly unsurprising.”

He laughs at that, and it seems to chase off the shadow that crossed his face. They don’t talk about extending her stay again for the rest of the evening, but the idea of adding a week or two to her travels takes root in her mind. After all, there’s nothing waiting for her back home. (And really, can she call Georgia home when every cell in her body says home only exists where she can hear the rhythmic thrumming of Tom’s heart?)

Two days later, the bed feels strangely cold the next morning when Rik wakes, and she realizes that it’s because Tom isn’t in it, arms and legs enveloping her with his warmth. She finds him in the kitchen, head hanging down, hands gripping the counter so tightly that it cords the muscles in his arms. He glances at her, and there’s a strain in his face that she hasn’t seen before.

She closes the distance between them, worried about what might have upset him, worried that their fairy tale is finally crumbling at the edges. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head, tries to give her a smile. “It’s nothing. I was going to make some tea, but I realized that we’re out.”

That’s not it. She knows it’s not. But she’s too afraid to push him for the truth. She’s not ready to return to reality. “That’s an easy fix,” she says, keeping her tone light. “I’ll go get some more from the shop.”

When he starts to argue, she says, “It’s not a big deal.” She reaches up, brushes her fingertips across his stubbly jaw. “Maybe you should go for a run while I pick us up a few things.”

“You’re right. I just need to clear my head.” He gives her a kiss laced with a tang of sadness, and her middle churns with foreboding. He opens his mouth as if he wants to say something else, but nothing comes. Instead, he walks to the bedroom to change.

From behind the counter, Tilly greets Rik when she enters the shop. Most guests stay only for a week, and after three, she’s become more of a “regular” to the staff. Tom too. She returns the pleasantries, asks after Tilly’s family, and then wanders the little place that’s part gift shop, part convenience store. She picks up tea for Tom, coffee for herself—as much as she can appreciate a nice “cuppa” on occasion, having grown up so close to the birthplace of Dutch Bros, she can never stray too far from the bean—and a few other odds and ends, including a pack of “biscuits” that Tom seems to favor. (They’ve had endless fun arguing over the proper names of things: biscuits vs. cookies, chips vs. fries, etc.) She idly traverses down the aisle with magazines and books as she makes her way to the register when something catches her eye.

Frowning, she pauses, backs up a few steps and glances at the rack of periodicals. It’s silly, but she thought she saw Tom—

Oh. No. No, that can’t be right. There’s a picture of Tom on one of the tabloids, grainy and blown up as if shot from afar on a phone camera. He’s wearing the pale blue linen button down that he wore on their day trip to Antigua. Same ball cap and sunglasses. Same broad smile. And _no_ , she’s in the picture too. Her face is covered by the wide brim of her hat, but that’s her holding his hand. The headline reads: _Has Hollywood’s Prince Charming Finally Found His Princess?_ Rik sets down the basket of groceries and reaches for the magazine with a quaking hand. This has to be a case of mistaken identity.

She leaves the shop in a daze, vaguely aware of apologizing to Tilly for the snacks she’s left behind and asking the woman to charge the magazine to her room. Tom’s not back from his run yet when she returns to the bungalow, and she sits down, stomach twisting, as she opens the tabloid to the article. She prays fervently that some paparazzo has screwed up, that _her_ Tom is a doppelganger for this celebrity.

There are more photos inside, telling the story of a man who is enamored with his companion. There isn’t a single clear shot of her face, but she’s sick all the same. Because even if this is a case of mistaken identity for Tom, her red hair, her petite stature is completely recognizable to anyone who knows she’s vacationing in the Caribbean. She swallows down a swell of panic as she finally reads an article that’s little more than a blurb.

_Tom Hiddleston, best known for his portrayal of Loki in Marvel’s Avengers films, has been sighted in the Caribbean with a mystery lady. The award winning actor seemed to be absolutely smitten and carefree as he shopped hand-in-hand with an unknown ginger beauty. Is he finally on the mend after his public break-up with [?? (Probably would have been a made-up celebrity since I started this story years before the whole Taylor Swift thing)]. Who is the lucky lady that’s captured the heart of our favorite British gentleman? Or is this just a rebound fling for the God of Mischief? We all want to know! Stay tuned for more updates!_

Rik’s heart drops when the door opens. Tom steps inside, sweaty and panting from his run. He stops short when his eyes fall in the tabloid still held open in her hands. She stares at him, silently begging him to be confused or to laugh it off, to say that he gets mistaken all the time for that “bloke.” He brings his eyes to hers, his face a mask, and yet she knows. It’s not a mistake.

He takes a tentative step toward her. “Let me explain.”

She feels as if the world has tilted off axis, and she stands up, heart banging in her chest as she starts to gather her things.

Tom captures her arm. “Wait,” he pleads. “Please just listen for a moment.”

She shakes her head, twists out of his grasp. “Listen to what?” she asks. “To you lie your way out of this?”

“Yes, I lied about my name, but nothing else,” he says, following her as she storms through the bungalow, gathering as much as she can find that belongs to her. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be known to the world? It’s impossible to meet someone new and have a normal conversation. When you didn’t recognize me… God, it felt like I could actually be myself for the first time in _years_. I could breathe for once, instead of waiting the moment you demanded something from me—an autograph, a photo op, an introduction to the right people in the business or some other check mark on your bucket list.”

She whips around to face him. “You could have told me!”

“I didn’t know that then!”

“I don’t mean when we first met!” she returns. She clenches her jaw as she tries to rein in the storm of emotion brewing inside of her. “I get why you lied, Tom. What I don’t get is why you _kept_ lying to me! After we started sleeping together, did it ever once occur to you that hey, maybe I should tell Rik that I’m a freaking celebrity!?”

“Yes, all right. Yes!” He runs his hands through his sun-kissed curls. “I rehearsed it a dozen times in my head, but the right moment never seemed to present itself. I didn’t know how to tell you without fracturing what we have.”

Rik lets out a brittle laugh. Just when she thought she couldn’t screw up her life anymore than she already has. “What we have,” she says, tears stinging in her eyes as she picks up the tabloid and shoves it at him, “is a fling.” That’s her first lie to him. Because this has meant so much more to her than that.

He crumples the magazine and tosses it to the floor. “Don’t,” he warns, anger and hurt written in his gaze. “Don’t you dare cheapen what we’ve created together.” He reaches for her, grasps her tenderly by the shoulders. “Rik, I—”

“Stop. _Stop._ ” It’s too much. She can’t let him say the words. None of this can be real. Not after two weeks. She steps back, tears now making wet tracks down her cheeks. “I have to go.”

His brows pull together. “Where?”

“Home,” she says even though she doesn’t know where that is anymore. “I have to go back and fix things.”

Tom steps back, features twisting in anguish. “You can’t be serious. You’re just going to…”—emotion cracks his voice—”to return to that gilded cage?”

“I don’t know! Jon—”

“Jon can sod off!” Tom’s voice echoes in the small cottage.

“He’s my husband,” Rik says quietly as she grips the door handle. She gives Tom a final glance wishing that they had met under better circumstances, wishing she had taken him up on the wistful offer to spend out the rest of their days in Barbuda, free from the cares of the world. “This has been a dream,” she says, “but it’s time to wake up.”

“Please don’t go.” The aching plea is hardly more than a whisper, and Rik pretends not to hear it as her throat tightens with heartbreak.

He doesn’t chase her, doesn’t stop by her bungalow as she hastily packs the rest of her things, doesn’t pound on the door, begging to be let in. Doesn’t try to talk her out of leaving. She tells herself it’s better this way, that their budding love would have languished under the demands of reality. But it feels like her ribs are made of shattered glass, piercing her with every breath she takes, every sob that escapes her throat.

Within an hour, she’s checked out of the resort and on the boat to Antigua. She stays the night in a hotel there while waiting for her flight the next morning, torments herself by looking Tom up online, at the few women he’s been attached to at events—so many of them costars. She reads the interviews where he’s said that he doesn’t make the best boyfriend, that his career makes that kind of commitment impossible.

What had she been thinking, getting involved with him? She was just another convenient romance in his life. He’ll move onto the next costar and forget all about her.

(Her heart stubbornly denies this, swears that she meant more to him than that, but she’s afraid to believe it.)

By the time she arrives in Atlanta, the sleuths at the tabloids have found her name and plastered it and her background across their headlines. Tom’s name is being dragged through the mud, too, for having a holiday hook-up with a married woman. Her phone blows up with so many text messages once she’s landed that she shuts it off. She takes a cab to her building and there’s a crowd of paparazzi waiting nearby. The doorman meets her outside, shields her from the aggressive press as she rushes inside. The questions shouted at her feel like a stones thrown at her.

“How did you meet Tom?”

“Did Tom know you were married?”

“Did you seduce him?”

“Do you love Tom?”

“Does your husband know that you cheated on him?”

“Are you going to get a divorce?”

She sags against the wall of the elevator as it travels up toward the penthouse suite. A part of her wants to hide away from all of this—change her name and go live in the Rocky Mountains in some artist colony. But on the flight back home, she’s come to realize that hiding is what she’s been doing most of her adult life, especially since Trip’s death. No more. She’s going to face the fallout head on.

Jon is coming down the hall when she walks through the door, and he freezes when he sees her. Anger and betrayal crosses his face as he stalks toward her.

“A celebrity?” he says in his deep Southern drawl. “Of all the people you could have stepped out with, you chose a goddamn world renowned _actor?_ ”

“I’m sorry.” The words seem too inadequate to convey the regret swelling in her chest.

“You’re _sorry?”_ Jon scoffs. “Do you know how many people I have trying to put out this fire you’ve made?”

An incredulous laugh bubbles up Rik’s throat before she can swallow it back, and Jon is far from amused.

“Do you think this is funny, Erika?”

“I find it funny that it isn’t the affair that bothers you, but that it went public.”

“Of course I’m bothered by the affair!”

Rik studies him. He’s a classically handsome man with a square jaw and that hint of early grey dusting at his temples. He’s distinguished, and she wishes that things had gone differently between them. “You’re bothered by how it reflects on you, on the Hadley name.” She lets out a deep sigh. “Aren’t you tired?”

He frowns. “Of what?”

“Of this.” She gestures between them. “Do you think we’re honoring his memory by punishing ourselves for the rest of our lives?”

Jon’s gaze shutters like it always does whenever the subject of his son is broached, but she’s not going to shy away from this anymore.

“I don’t think he’d want that for us,” she says. “You deserve to be happy, Jon. You deserve to be with someone you actually love and who will give you a family—a legacy. I think we both know I was never meant to be that woman.” She should have said these words years ago, and while they’re no less painful to say now, it’s a relief to finally admit the truth.

Jon’s not convinced. His expression hardens further. “I suppose this is your justification for running off with your celebrity lover.”

She shakes her head. “This isn’t about him. This is about you and me. We’re miserable,” she says. “And I don’t think I can go another day whipping myself for something I can’t change. It’s time to move on.”

“Erika—”

“I know.” It’s funny how she can know him so well, know that he’s going to argue that a divorce would be bad for the Hadley name, and at the same time he’s a stranger to her. “I know you’re worried that it will reflect poorly on you if I leave, but it’ll work out. I think you’ll be glad I did this. We both will.”

He softens, just a little. “Where will you go?”

She glances up at the ceiling and then back at him. “I think I’ll go home to Oregon.”

He’s silent for a moment and then finally nods. “I’ll have the papers drawn up in the morning. As for a settlement—”

She holds up a hand. “I don’t want anything.” Because none of this has ever belonged to her, and it’s all come at a crushing price.

“All right, then,” he says. “I’ll stay at the St. Regis while you get your things in order.”

It’s all so cold and transactional, the end of her marriage. But then, it’s always been, hasn’t it? She hadn’t known that it could be different, not until Tom. She forcefully pushes away thoughts of him, of how passionately he argued in favor of their relationship, of the anguish in his eyes as she walked away.

_( **Side note:** Jon is reading a bit dry and dispassionate here, but by the time I reached this point of the plot, I would have woven Rik and Jon’s story better throughout so that he’d read more authentically as a basically decent human but living with the overwhelming pressures of his family legacy. That and losing his son broke him as deeply as it broke Rik and shutting down completely and focusing on what he can control, what he does know, what he was raised to be is how he’s coped. And yes, this is as good a resolution as Rik can get with him. Because that’s all he has left to offer. He’s still too fractured. His healing, I hope along with Rik, will come when he finds a love that he and Rik never had—the kind of healing, liberating love she found with Tom, though it was at the wrong time in her life.)_

~

_**SIX MONTHS LATER…** _

**[Interviewer]:** I’m here with Tom Hiddleston stage and film actor who brought Loki to life. He’s recently finished a biopic that I hear is Oscar-worthy. Tom, will you tell us a little about the role?

 **TH:** I’ll confess that initially I wasn’t sure if I’d take on the project.

 **[Interviewer]:** I can imagine. Portraying an iconic actor like Clark Gable must have felt like pretty big shoes to fill.

 **TH:** Absolutely. But when you peel back the layers of his story, you discover that his experiences are, in a way, universal to the human condition. There are people who come into your life and irrevocably change it. Carole Lombard was that person for Clark Gable. After she died tragically during World War II, he joined the Air Force, keeping his word to her to help with the war efforts. He married twice more in his lifetime, but he was buried next to her.

 **[Interviewer]:** Wow. You sound passionate about their story. Do you have someone in your life who has inspired that same kind of devotion in you?

 **TH:** _(soft laugh, far away look)_ Deep down, I think we all dream of making that kind of visceral connection, don’t we? It’s something that should be chased after if you ever have the privilege of finding it.

 **[Interviewer]:** That's an eloquent and ambiguous answer.

 **TH:** _(another laugh, this one softer, wistful)_ I’m afraid that’s the only one I have to give.

 **[Interviewer]:** What’s next for you? There are rumors of you reprising your role as Loki.

 _ **TH:**_ Actually—

~

_**ONE YEAR LATER…** _

Rik rubs her hands together, pulse thrumming as she walks the perimeter of the gallery, checking that everything is in order. Tonight is her first show—her first _full_ collection where every piece on display was created by her hands. And it’s at a premiere gallery in NYC. She’s recently moved east after spending a little over six months in Oregon finding her roots again, picking up the thread of who she was before her marriage to Jon and following it to discover who she is now without him. Cynthia, the gallery’s owner, was on vacation on the West Coast and found Rik selling a few of her smaller pieces at a street market. Cynthia asked to see a portfolio, and eventually, Rik found herself packing her few belongings and moving across the country to chase the dream she’d set aside for more than a decade.

She inhales a deep steadying breath. Showing her work feels like offering her soul on the altar of the public and hoping they accept it. That’s nerve-wracking enough, but then Cynthia asked her to come in a few hours before the show. There’s a collector who has requested a private viewing, someone who apparently has enough clout to make such a request. Rik worries that if he or she doesn’t like the installation, her career will never take flight.

There’s the soft creak of the door, a set of footfalls as Cynthia’s voice murmurs just beyond hearing, and Rik rubs her palms down the front of her thighs. It’s a minute before the group rounds the corner to the entrance to the show. Rik has set it up as a path to follow, to force the patrons to experience the artwork in a certain order. Cynthia comes into view first.

“There you are,” she says. “Rik, let me introduce—”

“Tom,” Rik whispers when the man she knows body and soul steps up beside Cynthia. There’s another with them, but Rik has eyes only for Tom. He’s different—hair darker, longer, curling at the nape of his neck, a short-cropped goatee framing his mouth, and the glasses that he rarely wore last year set on the bridge of his patrician nose—but he’s the same, too, with that tentative smile he gives her.

It’s like it was just yesterday she was laying in his lap as he extolled the virtues of Disney’s classic _The Jungle Book_.

“I see you’ve met before.” Cynthia’s expression turns shrewd as she looks between the two of them.

“Yes,” Tom says. He half turns to his companion. “Luke, this is Rik Hadley.”

Luke steps forward, offering a hand to shake. “Pleasure, Miss Hadley.”

She takes his hand, gives it a brief pump. “Actually, it’s Carter now.” She hazards a glance at Tom whose brows rise a fraction.

Luke gives Tom a pointed look, as if silently communicating something. Tom gives him a bare shake of his head, and Luke doesn’t seem pleased by it, but he nods. “Right, well,” he says, “you’ve got an hour before your next press junket. I’ll leave you to it.” He excuses himself.

Cynthia says something about needing to answer emails—Rik can’t be sure exactly what she’s said because she can’t tear her gaze from Tom—and leaves the pair alone.

There are a thousand things she should say to him, but she’s never been good at shaping everything in her head into a string of coherent sentences. He seems equally at a loss as he opens his mouth and closes it again with a quiet, rasping laugh. She never thought she’d hear that again. She never thought she’d see him again, especially after the way they parted. And now he’s standing in front of her.

She finally breaches the charged silence between them. “You wanted to see the collection?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I hope… I hope that’s okay.”

She smiles, gives him a shaky nod. She relegated the events of last summer to more a dream than reality, but being within arm’s length of him again, it all comes flooding back in vivid color, so incredibly real, _tactile_. Butterflies take flight in her stomach as she leads him through the installation.

While he examines each piece, she studies him, the lines that form his jaw, his cheekbones. She’s drawn these a dozen times from memory whenever her heart ached over the timing of their meeting. When she played with what-ifs. What if he’d told her the whole truth about himself. What if they’d never crossed the line they crossed. It’s taken her months, but she’s finally come to accept that without him, she’d still be in Atlanta, a Stepford wife attending Junior League meetings, pasting on smiles while dying inside by increments.

Her regrets about what transpired between them are on his behalf. She gave him a heart that she wasn’t free to give—not a year ago—and then ripped it back from him. Now… now nothing. She can’t let herself hope that he’ll forgive her, that he’ll want to offer her the same unspoken promises that were written in his gaze each time he smiled at her, each time he drew his fingers across her jaw before he tasted her.

Tom stops before a painting, brows drawing together as his lips part in surprise. He glances at the next few, then back to this piece. She understands his shock. Because it’s a painting of him on the beach, inspired by that first sketch she drew of him. His face isn’t visible in the piece, but the posture, the white shirt billowing in the seaside breeze, all still convey that listlessness he’d exuded in that moment. The rest of the series is inspired by those she met in Barbuda and how each of them helped shape her, but the the major theme of her work centers on—

“It’s _our_ story,” Tom says, turning to her. “You’ve told our story.”

“I hope it’s okay,” she parrots back his earlier comment to him. She wove the hope, the healing, the heartache ambiguously through the pieces, but only she and he know it belongs exclusively to them, that it represents the months they lived together in three short weeks.

He doesn’t reply, not until he reaches the end of the series, and when he finally looks at her, his pale eyes are glassy. “It’s beautiful. I feel… I’m honored.”

Her heart soars at his praise. Without him, this wouldn’t exist either. She opens her mouth to tell him as much, but he speaks first.

“I’m so sorry, Rik,” he says, features drawn in regret. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through because of me.”

She shakes her head. The paparazzi chased her only for the couple of weeks she stayed in Atlanta, but then died away when she moved back to Oregon. Soon the tabloids were covered with scandalous news about some other celebrity. Eventually she was forgotten. She guessed the ordeal was probably worse for him. She was only interesting to the public for a minute; he’s had to give up his life to them.

“I’m okay,” she says, resisting the instinct to reach up, to lay a comforting hand on his arm, to caress his cheek with her fingertips.

He blows out a sigh, gaze cutting to the paintings before meeting hers again. “You said that what transpired between us was a dream,” he says, “but you have to know that it was real for me. Everything.”

“Me too,” she confesses.

A smile blossoms on his face, deepening the long dimple she used to draw her finger across. He takes a step back and holds out a hand. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Tom Hiddleston, famous actor, a point of fact that still surprises me. I feel it’s terribly important—nay, absolutely _vital_ —that we begin our association with that pertinent bit of information.

Hope zings through her veins. Can he forgive her so easily? By the naked adoration written in his eyes, she thinks he just might. She grins back at him, takes his hand and gives it a firm shake. “Rik Carter, an artist who isn’t famous yet, but has every intention of becoming a household name. Speaking of pertinent facts: I’m divorced—just in case this ‘association’ should take a romantic turn.”

Tom doesn’t let go of her hand, instead he uses it to gently tug her closer to him. “Oh, I think things are about to get quite romantic.” She’s grateful for the lightness in his tone. “I might even recite a sonnet or three.”

“Let’s not get crazy,” she counters. “A little Monty Python is all I need to be wooed.”

“If that’s all it takes,” he says, smile widening, “ then what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

“An African or European swallow?”

“God, I’ve missed you.” And then he takes her face in his hands and leans down, pressing his lips over his. It’s familiar, like finding home after being lost in the wilderness for a lifetime. It’s new, electrifying every cell in her body as he breathes her in—as if she’s the only oxygen he needs.

He comes to the show that night after he finishes his press junket. His presence causes a stir, especially when he laces his fingers with hers. It doesn’t bother her. She’s more worried about the critics' reviews than the gossip-mongers, and the reviews come back glowing. Her show is a resounding success.

The next morning, when they pick up coffee at a little shop near her apartment, they laugh at the photo on the tabloids, one of him giving her a kiss on her cheek at the show. _Has Tom Hiddleston Won His Princess? Can It Be True Love After All?_ the headline reads.

“Yes,” Tom murmurs against her ear. “It absolutely is.”

**THE END**


End file.
